Rest O’ the Roundup
• Bibi and Putin upgrade ties by installing a direct, secure telephone hotline. YNet explains:
Russia expert Alex Tentzer says the move aims to allow Russia and Israel to converse on sensitive issues that impact on both nations without any intervention by the United States. Israeli and American leaders also have a direct line.
• Reuters: Sudan rejected Tehran’s offer to install Iranian anti-aircraft missiles after a 2012 airstrike widely thought to have been carried out by Israel. Sudan feared the Gulf states would misinterpret the move.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Gabriel Scheinmann (the American intelligence community has never accurately predicted when hostile states have gone nuclear).
• Syria’s ISIS crucifies opponents, using the Koran for justification.
• Never again, right?
• One unfortunate side effect of the Sandy Hook massacre was seeing Israel inaccurately dragged into the American gun control debate. After the more recent Santa Barbara shootings, Charley Warady pre-empts the nonsense by clarifying Israel’s gun control laws.
• The Sunday Times of London is releasing a cache of email of emails detailing how Qatar literally bought itself the 2022 World Cup. Could the Persian Gulf state lose the games?
The files expose how Qatar’s astonishing victory in the race to secure the right to host the 2022 tournament was sealed by a covert campaign by Mohamed bin Hammam, the country’s top football official.
The Qatari vice-president of Fifa, the governing body of world football, used secret slush funds to make dozens of payments totalling more than $5m to senior football officials to create a groundswell of support for Qatar’s plan to take world football by storm . . .
This weekend football chiefs, politicians and anti-corruption experts called for the competition for the 2022 World Cup to be rerun.
• Imagine if something like this happened in Israel:
VIDEO: CNN Reporter Detained in Turkey While Live on the Air
• For more commentary/analysis, see Verda Ozer (Israel’s waiting for a Turkish gesture).
(Image of phone via PixabayOpenClips)
For more, see Thursday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
